The official blog dedicated to the "Words & Music" segment on Friday Evening Classics with Will Duchon
on WMNR Fine Arts Radio (www.wmnr.org) between 9 and 10PM, ET

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Word Settings: Music written for poetry, October 11, 2013

SYRINX

by John Lyly (1553-1606)

Syrinx was a girl indeed,

Though now she's turned
into a reed;

From that dear reed Pan's
pipe does come,

A pipe that strikes Apollo
dumb;

Nor flute, nor lute, nor
gittern can

So chant it as the pipe of
Pan:

Cross-gartered swains and
dairy girls,

With faces smug and round
as pearls,

When Pan's shrill pipe
begins to play,

With dancing wear out night
and day;

The bagpipe's drone his hum
lays by,

When Pan sounds up his
minstrelsy;

His minstrelsy! O base! this
quill,

Which at my mouth with wind
I fill,

Puts me in mind, though her
I miss,

That still my Syrinx' lips
I kiss.

REFLECTIVE MUSIC: Syrinx by Claude Debussy

Ulalume

By Edgar Allan
Poe

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere -
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir -
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through and alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul -
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll -
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole -
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere -
Our memories were treacherous and sere, -
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!) -
We noted not the dim lake of Auber
(Though once we had journeyed down here) -
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn -
As the star-dials hinted of morn -
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn -
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said: "She is warmer than Dian;
She rolls through an ether of sighs -
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies -
To the Lethean peace of the skies -
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes -
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said: "Sadly this star I mistrust -
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:
Ah, hasten! -ah, let us not linger!
Ah, fly! -let us fly! -for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust -
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust -
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied: "This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendour is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty tonight! -
See! -it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright -
We safely may trust to a gleaming,
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom -
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb -
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said: "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied: "Ulalume -Ulalume -
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere -
As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried: "It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed -I journeyed down here! -
That I brought a dread burden down here -
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon hath tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber -
This misty mid region of Weir -
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

REFLECTIVE MUSIC: Ulalume by Joseph Holbrooke

Sonnet 49

By Pablo Neruda

It's today: all of
yesterday dropped away
among the fingers of the light and the sleeping eyes.
Tomorrow will come on its green footsteps;
no one can stop the river of the dawn.

No one can stop the river of your hands,
your eyes and their sleepiness, my dearest.
You are the trembling of time, which passes
between the vertical light and the darkening sky.

The sky folds its wings over you,
lifting you, carrying you to my arms
with its punctual, mysterious courtesy.
That is why I sing to the day and to the moon,
to the sea, to time, to all the planets,
to your daily voice, to your nocturnal skin.

It's today: all of yesterday dropped away
among the fingers of the light and the sleeping eyes.
Tomorrow will come on its green footsteps;
no one can stop the river of the dawn.

It's today, it's today...

REFLECTIVE MUSIC: Sonnet 49 by Luciana Souza

Sonnet 99

By Pablo
Neruda

Other days
will come. It'll be understood,
the silence of plants and planets,
and how many pure things will take place!
Violins will have the smell of the moon!

Bread will
be, perhaps, like you;
it will have your voice, your wheat-like condition,
and other things will speak with your voice . . .
the lost horses of autumn.

Though it
won't be as it is meant to be,
love will fill grand kegs
like the antique honey of shepherds,

and in the
dust of my heart
(where there will be stupendous storage sheds),
you'll come and go among the melons.

"Words & Music" is a one-hour long segment of poetry and music. Since December of 2011, I have recited hundreds of poems, each followed by a piece of music which (I feel) reflects the soul and energy of the poem. Of course, this is all subjective. However, the purpose of "Words & Music" is to explore and enjoy the profound link between...words and music.

Many of the poems recited on the air have been those of the masters: Shakespeare, Auden, Shelley, Keats, Whitman, and other renowned poetic voices. Other poems have been submitted by contemporary poets who are living, breathing, and creating here and now. This blog will publish ALL of the poetry heard on the air, along with information about the poets and the music heard on the program.